Monday, March 9 Background on the literay movement of Naturalism

Ethan Frome text

Ethan Frome audio book

Due today: handout questions on The Prologue from Ethan Frome. (handed out last Thursday)  You were to have read pages 3-22. Please turn in your responses.

Coming up: vocabulary quiz on Friday, March 13 (handed out last Thursday; another copy below) For Wednesday, please read chapters 1 and 2 (pages 23-49); expect a quiz on Wednesday.

In class: review of the literary movement of natualism. (class handout / copy below); this is due at the close of class, unless you receive extended time.  Five-week grade reports are being handed out. If there are errors, hand me in the missing material. Remember that missing work can be turned in for 50 points. 

When you have finished, there is a survey on your e-mail from the school's culture committee and Ms. Nicastro, please complete this. 

Name_________________________________

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton  background information on the literary movement of Naturalism. Column 1 lists qualities associated with Naturalism. Please respond to the query (new word) in column 2 that asks you to extend the idea presented in column 1. Please use complete sentences. 

Column 1                                                                            Column 2

1. The term Naturalism describes a type of literature that attempts to apply scientific principles of objectivity and detachment to its study of human beings.	What does it mean “to apply scientific principles of objectivity and detachment to human beings?”
2.  Naturalistic writers, since human beings are, in Emile Zola's phrase, "human beasts," characters can be studied through their relationships to their surroundings.	In what ways could human beings be described as “beasts?”
3. The Naturalist believed in studying human beings as though they were "products" that are to be studied impartially, without moralizing about their natures.	a. What does it mean to “moralize” a human being? b. What advantage might a writer have in removing the idea of moralizing from a narrative?
4. Naturalistic writers believed that the laws of behind the forces that govern human lives might be studied and understood through the objective study of human beings.	If moralizing is removed from human nature, what might remain?
5. Naturalistic writers used a version of the scientific method to write their novels; they studied human beings governed by their instincts and passions as well as the ways in which the characters' lives were governed by forces of heredity and environment.	The literary movement Romanticism we looks at how instincts and passions impact a tale. Now heredity and environment are added into the mix.  Which set of forces do you think will dominate and why?
6. Naturalism is considered as a movement to be beyond Realism. Naturalism is based more on scientific studies.	Realism is writing about what is called warts and all. Social Science connection. What social movement (s) was taking place in the latter half of the 19th century whose reality when exposed would lead to social change?
7. Darwin's Theory of Evolution is a basis for the Naturalist writer. Natural selection and survival of the fittest help to depict the struggle against nature as a hopeless fight.	So who invariably wins this battle? Why?

Ethan Frome Vocabulary Words    quiz on Friday, March 13 periods 3 and 9 only

1.  sardonic: adj. Scornfully or cynically mocking; sarcastic.

2.   colloquial: adj.  1. Characteristic of or appropriate to the spoken language or to writing that seeks

                            the effect of speech; informal.  2. Relating to conversation; conversational.

3.    innocuous: adj. 1. Having no adverse effect; harmless. 2. Not likely to offend or provoke to strong

                        emotion; insipid.

4.  reticent: adj. 1. Inclined to keep one's thoughts, feelings, and personal affairs to oneself;

                              Restrained or reserved in style. 3. Reluctant; unwilling.

5. poignant: adj.  Keenly distressing to the mind or feelings: poignant anxiety; profoundly moving;  touching: a poignant memory.

6. wraith:  n. 1. An apparition of a living person that appears as a portent just before that person's

                            death. 2. The ghost of a dead person. 3. Something shadowy and insubstantial.

7. wistful:  adj. 1. Full of wishful yearning. 2. Pensively sad; melancholy.

8. undulation: n. 1. A regular rising and falling or movement to alternating sides; movement in waves.

9. tenuous:  adj. 1. Long and thin; slender: tenuous strands. 2. Having a thin consistency; dilute;   

          having little substance; flimsy: a tenuous argument.

10. throng: n. 1. A large group of people gathered or crowded closely together; a multitude.

                throngs  v.tr.  1. To crowd into; fill: commuters thronging the subway platform.2. To press in  

                    to gather, press, or move in a throng.

11. vex:   (verb) 1. To annoy, as with petty importunities; bother. 2. To cause perplexity in; puzzle.

12. laden:  adj. 1. Weighed down with a load; heavy: "the warmish air, laden with the rains of those

               thousands of miles of western sea" Hilaire Belloc.  2. Oppressed; burdened: laden with grief.

13. preclude:  1. To make impossible, as by action taken in advance; prevent. 2. To exclude or prevent (someone) from a given condition or activity: Modesty precludes me from accepting the honor.

14. succumb: (verb) 1. To submit to an overpowering force or yield to an overwhelming desire; give up or give in. 2. To die.

15. foist:  (verb) 1. To pass off as genuine, valuable, or worthy: "I can usually tell whether a poet . . . is foisting off on us what he'd like to think is pure invention" J.D. Salinger.

    2. To impose (something or someone unwanted) upon another by coercion or trickery:They had extra work foisted on them because they couldn't say no to the boss. 3. To insert fraudulently or deceitfully: foisted unfair provisions into the contract.